Thank you to everyone who completed our budget consultation. We'll report back on this in the coming months.
Every year, the council is legally required to set a balanced budget. We’re now looking at what money we have available to spend next year.
As a council, this year we set an expenditure budget of around £755million.
Some services, such as schools, planning and car parking receive specific income from grants or from charging fees direct to service users. That income adds up to £422million.
This gives us a net budget of £333million to deliver our services for the 342,000 people who live in Sandwell.
Here’s how our net budget of £333million for council services is funded:
- 40% from Council Tax.
- 48% from Business Rates and Business Rate top-ups grant.
- And 12% comes from non-specific Government grants.
How do we spend that money?
For every £100 of our net budget of £333million, we spend:
- £27 on Adult Social Care
- £31.50 on Children’s Services and education
- £11 on bins and recycling
- £6.50 on highways and environmental maintenance
- £4.50 on public transport
- £3.50 on culture and leisure
- £1 on Public Health and community safety
- £1 on planning and economic growth
- £1 on housing support
- And £13 on running the council and all of these services.
We also work with our partners who provide health services, the police, fire service, voluntary organisations and the Government.
Sandwell is not yet facing the extreme financial difficulties that some other local authorities are already facing. However, demand for our services is rising – and the cost of running them is too.
We must continue to manage our finances responsibly to avoid falling into these difficulties, and this means that there are still some difficult decisions to make about options for the future.
We need to change our services so we can give the best possible outcomes for our residents, while managing the council’s money and resources responsibly. Thanks to those who completed our consultation, we'll report back on this in the coming months.